Following

I don't think anyone can really give you an answer on this - a great deal will depend on where you live - state, city, hot property market, slow market, lots of factors involved. Also, does the budget include the cost of the land, or is it for the cost of the build only?

That said, having a fully finished basement plus an 8-car underground garage and an infinity pool sounds like a lot of pretty complex and expensive engineering.

LOL@Jan

I am no expert at this but 1 million for 4k square footage, infinity pool and an 8 car garage...Seriously.....Who are you building this for Jay Leno?.. Shaq?

for $1.4 million you could have bought the 'as is' house across the street from me. 2 car detached garage with bays too small to hold more than smart cars, 0 functional kitchen, 1 functional bath, 3 unfunctional ones. built in 1850 so its pretty.

so yeah, its all where you live.

A realistic budget is where you need to start and that ain’t it.

Thanks for all the feedback! I would take all that into consideration.

No you can't. I live in the part of the country where housing cost are low . The nice average 2000sqft 3 bedroom 2 1/2 bath home is 250,000- 350,000. You wouldn't get it built even here for that price. Maybe Waco Texas. Knock off the garages and the pool and the finished basement, then maybe without the land cost.

No, not even close.

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/build

Houzz has a Building a House Forum. Try that

Thanks! Lot is not included in that budget and definitely have to cut back on the pool and the basement. Would probably reduce to 3000sq ft. Thanks for all your responses! This has given me a better picture of what I could do. Happy 4th of July!

Well they have these most EVERYWHERE : ) Sorry I could not resist. Happy fourth!!

My friend had her (gorgeous old) house razed and replaced it with a 12,000sq ft house with a interior pool and exterior infinity pool. Construction cost ran around $6,000,000.00

4.000 SF is not that big of a house. You can build it for 1m, of course excluding the cost of the infinity pool but you can get regular in ground pool and exclude the cost of the lot especially if you know what you doing, have experience and have your subs lined up... If you hire a GC it will cost a little extra but not over 1m.

Where are the eight cars going GN? : )

yes, 8,,,,don't forget the underground garage. ( why underground? that alone would eat up half the budget)

How do you build a house with a finished basement and/and an underground, 8 car parking lot? Is the garage in its own separate bunker? Inquiring minds want to know ;)

Could be an above ground walkout "basement" though I've always been annoyed by that classification.

Or two underground levels, a mil should do that... :-/

Basement is connected to the eight-car garage.

I have to believe the ventilation system for the underground parkade will eat a huge chunk of your budget.

Charca I don't want to rain on your parade, but in this kind of situation if you have to ask "do I have enough money" the answer is NO, you don't.

OP: realistically, I think you need to have a look in your area at what land plus $1m gets you and then adjust your plans from there. It may be possible in some areas to get your 4000 sq f house with basement and some sort of above ground garage for that figure.

The underground garage is a separate issue: you'd want to find out the soil type for a starter, to even know whether it can be done; then there's the cost of excavation, of building a structure strong enough; of ventilation and also of flood prevention (water running down a sloping driveway has to go somewhere). Also, a little cautionary tale: where I used to live, some out of towners bought a big chunk of land with the idea of building a big house with an underground garage for about six cars. The locals knew what would happen: the council refused the building permit because the garage would have been below the water table!

So, you really need to do your homework on costings, and also on what is physically possible for the site you have in mind.

Jan, I'm sure an architect will specify where the garage is going and will have a construction detail on architectural drawings. None of us know what the lot looks like... If it's a mountain side, it is very easy to put the garage and the basement into the mountain and come up with the house framing, done all the time. That being said if the 8 car garage is going to the bottom and the house will be going on the top... for 8 car garage you need approximately 96' X 20 ( 12x20 per car) that 1900 SF so if the house has 2 floors above it that 3800 SF of living space... It's not that big of a deal and with a 1m budget, it's very much doable.

That being said of course you have to know what you doing, you have to know how to schedule everything and hypothetically speaking even if you pay someone 100k to advise and run the job ($25 PSF) this size house can be done in 6-8 months and even if it takes a year you still be within the budget.

Furthermore, you have to consider other factors like the design, materials you select, etc everything will make a difference in price... but you can have a beautiful house with that budget and you will have enough to stick a nice pool a patio and a fence. :-)

Sign yourself up GN! Charge for the travel to the site visit!

GN I think you had too much sun on the weekend.

Jealous Patricia? Are you getting your first snow already? ;-)

That being said let's assume that basic construction cost is $125.00 per SF x 4000sf =500k total construction cost (no land, no nothing else). Let's add 50k for a nice custom kitchen, beautiful tiled floors, nice master bathroom, hardwood flooring throughout, etc, in other words, lets use above builder grade materials so that would add lets say another 20% to the construction cost so now you at $150 PSF X4000 SF you still at 600k and you still have 400k to play with that left from 1m anticipated budget.

Let's hire consultation services that would be me for 100k and let's hire Jan Moyer for another 100k to provide decorating tips from her home :-), you still have 200k left, lets add a 50k inground pool, 30k patio, 20k in bushes around the pool, 50k a nice bar and you still have 50 left to throw a nice party.... and all this throwing money into the wind but if you think about it on a 1m budget you can build yourself a heck of a house, so I don't know why so many people think there is no way possible.

Hmmmm....She lives in Illinois.

GN you haven't given her her underground 8 car garage. I have no idea if that can be done for the 50k you've left her or not. ??

Lindsey, what is an underground garage? In Brooklyn NY almost every house has an underground garage.

Here you will have 8 car garage underground it only needs 3 walls which will be assumingly surrounded by soil and front wall with 8 garage doors and a concrete slab. We're not talking about 3 levels of an underground parking garage that need ventilation etc.

This will be under house parking with doors to the daylight. No ventilation needed, not to mention building code prohibits any air discharge openings into the garage area... so it's not that big of a deal, it's the same if I dig out and expose one of my basement walls, cut an opening and stick a few garage doors and I will have underground garage.

Hello Charca!

I am actually doing two basement homes here in Arizona that are similar square footage. (Keep in mind they aren't doing underground garages though) Also, costs if lots and contraction can differ significantly from state to state-even from city to city!

One of the new builds, actually includes a 7 car above ground garage. Not including the land, their budget is about $900,000. However, this does not include any landscaping. For what they are looking for my guess is the budget will be about $150,000. They have wood floors, quartz countertops, marble in the master bathroom etc. We were very careful about their budget and held back in areas so we could spend in others. I have attached a few sketches I did to show the extent of detail they are getting at this price.

For my other basement new build, we started with just a specification budgeting exercise. So they hired me prior to submitting to city, finalizing their plans and selecting a contractor. Basically, I created documents for them for various contractors to bid from. These documents included either exact specifications of what would be in the home, or allowances. For example, for the countertops we specified the Cambria Luxury like with a 3cm thickness and an eased edge. This allowed us to get a budget without picking an actual product. In places like bathrooms, we specified a product allowance. For instance, the kids bathrooms we specified a $5.00 a square foot product and let the contractor take care of any budgeting needed for installation and prep. In the end we send the documents with the plans to four contractors and we received bids back. After seeing we were over budget, we started selecting different items to accommodate their needs. We turned out having the build be right around $750,000 (this also does not include landscaping or the land.)

I would recommend finding a designer in your area who can help you with these steps. This is the best way to get the most accurate numbers I have found. It also, assists in making sure you are getting priced what you want. A lot of the time contractors don't have the time to help you with design and may not price out what you are dreaming of.

Good Luck!

Design Outside the Lines Interiors

I think some people are missing the point that OP said she wants to build a "Modern House." To me, that implies a certain level of architectural design, finishes, and attention to the smallest of details that is far more expensive than your average build (which is what I see a lot of the pros here referencing as doable for the quoted budget). Can you build a 4,000 SF house for this price—yes. Can you build an architecturally significant modern home to OPs specs—very unlikely. Perhaps we need more information from OP as to what her design and finish expectations are.

To be honest, I don't think any of the advice here means a lot. We have no idea of the topography of the land the OP plans to build on, the type of house, the design she envisages, or building costs in her area. Without that information, it's all just speculation.

Yes, a purely academic excercise!

We are building a 3650 sqft house in central NJ for about 860K. Walkout basement and 2 car garage (above ground).

No, not even close to enough to get what you’re asking for. Try 3-4 million and that’s being generous.

Doable here in Central AZ - without the underground garage. But typically here, a house with that amenity would cater to the tastes of a client with triple that budget.